Community Impact Scholarship Recipient ‘Inspired to Keep Giving Back’

By Catherine Scott

May 6, 2026

First-year student Cole Bailey cowrote a book about his high school volunteering experience and says his Maxwell classes have inspired him to think about giving back on a larger scale.

Cole Bailey was a Texas teenager with a hammer and a mission. On a weekend during high school, he and his brother and mother drove to a home in Dallas and built a wheelchair ramp from scratch—giving someone who rarely left the house a path to the world outside.

A person smiles at the camera wearing a gray Syracuse University sweatshirt. A brick building is visible through large windows in the background. — Cole Bailey

For Bailey, that afternoon stuck. It confirmed what he’d already been building toward: a life oriented around service to others. That ethos is what drew him to the Maxwell School, and what earned him a Scholarship for Community Impact.

A first-year student studying international relations, he is one of four students who received the Maxwell School scholarship which provides $15,000 per year to defray tuition so long as certain requirements related to grades, major and credit hours are met.

Amy Schmidt, director of Maxwell’s Civic and Community Engagement Office, said the faculty and staff members who review the hundreds of scholarship applications are often challenged to narrow their selections. But, she said, Bailey was an easy choice.

“What stood out about Cole was not just the depth of his commitment to service, but his drive to bring others along with him,” she said. “From a young age, he was showing up, week after week, because he genuinely cared about the people around him.”

Schmidt is not surprised that in his first year at Syracuse, Bailey has not only soaked up his coursework but also become an active member of the campus community. A member of the Renée Crown University Honors Program, he serves on its advisory board and helps organize events. He has also volunteered as a tutor for local children at the City of Syracuse’s Wilson Park Community Center.

“I took a course last semester about refugees,” he said. “It was interesting to learn about what so many people across the world are impacted by and persecuted for. It inspired me to keep giving back. There are a lot of people going through hard times. Whatever you can do, you should do.”

Cole Bailey

first-year student studying international relations

Bailey’s passion for giving back started during his freshman year of high school. A member of the Young Men’s Service League, he had a volunteer requirement to fulfill and wound up turning it into much more. Nearly every weekend, he spent time working with organizations such as Meals on Wheels and Rays of Light, and he found a calling in helping others.

The wheelchair ramp project came along in his junior year. He said the home’s resident had to be carried in and out of the house before the ramp was added. “It may just seem like a piece of wood, but it was such an improvement to their daily life,” he said. “That really resonated with me.”

These and other experiences inspired Bailey to coauthor a book with his brother: The Summer of Service: Adventures in Volunteering. Self-published, it blends practical advice and inspiring stories to help other high schoolers enter and thrive in the world of volunteering.

“I remember it being a long process—you have to type it all out, draft it, edit it,” Bailey recalled of the writing process. “But honestly, now that I say it, it’s kind of easier than I thought. Especially if it’s something you’re passionate about.”

Schmidt read about the book in Bailey’s scholarship application. “I think it was the fact that he put a lot of time and effort into not only doing a service but then taking the time to write about it so that he could share the insight he’d gained,” she said. “Writing this book was a really, really cool way to not only share his experiences, but encourage and inspire other people to make an impact.”

Cole said his Maxwell classes have pushed him to think about service at a larger scale—not just building ramps but understanding the systems that leave people without them. In the future, he hopes to pursue social entrepreneurship, using business principles to alleviate systemic cultural, environmental and social issues.

“I took a course last semester about refugees,” he said. “It was interesting to learn about what so many people across the world are impacted by and persecuted for. It inspired me to keep giving back. There are a lot of people going through hard times. Whatever you can do, you should do.”